English · हिन्दी · తెలుగు · தமிழ் · മലയാളം · मराठी · ಕನ್ನಡ

The Later Vedic period

The Vedic age · Part 2 / 2 · Fact-checked on 8 November 2026 · how we check

Written with AI from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, then fact-checked by a separate AI.

The Sama, Yajur and Atharva Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads and Vedangas; the move east into the Ganga-Yamuna doab and Videha; Painted Grey Ware and iron; janapadas, kings and the rajasuya, ashvamedha and vajapeya; ratnins and weaker assemblies; plough farming and rice; varna by birth, gotra and the three debts; the ashramas and women; Prajapati, priestly ritual and Upanishadic ideas; and how the Early and Later Vedic periods and the Harappan world compare.

Around 1000 BCE the Vedic world begins to change so much that historians treat the next four centuries, roughly 1000 to 600 BCE, as a separate stage: the Later Vedic period. Part 1 described small cattle-keeping tribes in the land of the seven rivers. In this part those people move east into the Ganga plain, take up iron, clear forest, grow rice and settle in villages that stay put. Tribes turn into territories, chiefs into kings who perform grand sacrifices, and the loose social groups of the Rig Veda harden into the varna order. Archaeology now adds a pottery tradition, Painted Grey Ware, that matches the area the texts describe. The part ends by comparing the two Vedic stages and the Vedic world with the Harappan one.

Three more Vedas belong to this period, and each served a different job at the sacrifice. The Sama Veda is a book of chants: almost all its verses are taken from the Rig Veda and set to melody for the singing priest. The Yajur Veda holds the formulas spoken while the ritual is actually performed. It comes in two branches: the Shukla or White Yajur Veda keeps the formulas apart from their explanation, while the Krishna or Black Yajur Veda mixes the two. The Atharva Veda is different in spirit. It is full of charms and spells against illness, snakes, enemies and bad luck, and prayers for love, harvest and long life, so it shows the beliefs of ordinary households rather than only priestly ritual.

Around each Veda grew layers of prose. The Brahmanas explain the meaning and correct steps of each ritual and tell the stories behind them; the Aitareya Brahmana is attached to the Rig Veda and the long Shatapatha Brahmana to the White Yajur Veda. The Aranyakas, 'forest books', were studied in the quiet of the forest and move from ritual towards reflection. The last layer, the Upanishad texts, turns to philosophy, which is why they are called Vedanta, 'the end of the Veda'. India's national motto, Satyameva Jayate, comes from the Mundaka Upanishad. Later came six Vedangas, aids for studying the Vedas: Shiksha (phonetics), Kalpa (ritual rules), Vyakarana (grammar), Nirukta (meaning of words), Chhandas (metre) and Jyotisha (astronomy and the calendar). Traditions also name Upavedas on practical arts such as medicine (Ayurveda), war (Dhanurveda) and music (Gandharvaveda).

The centre of Vedic life now shifts from the Punjab to the Ganga-Yamuna doab, the fertile land between the two rivers. The Kurus and Panchalas become the leading peoples here. Further east lie Kosala, Kashi and Videha. A story in the Shatapatha Brahmana pictures this spread: Videgha Mathava follows the sacred fire, Agni, as it burns its way eastwards across the land until it stops at the river Sadanira, usually identified with the Gandak, and his people then settle beyond it in Videha. The tale is a memory of clearing and settling new country, with fire as both a sacred guide and the practical means of burning forest. The Ganga and Yamuna, barely named in the Rig Veda, now become the core of the Vedic map.

Archaeology supports this picture. In the upper Ganga plain and the Ghaggar region, many sites of roughly 1000 to 600 BCE yield Painted Grey Ware, a fine grey pottery with simple black designs such as lines, dots and circles. It was found at Hastinapur, excavated by B. B. Lal in the early 1950s, and at sites like Atranjikhera and Ahichchhatra. The area of this pottery broadly matches the Kuru-Panchala land of the texts, which is why it is linked with Later Vedic people, though a pot cannot tell us what language its makers spoke. Iron objects such as arrowheads, spearheads and some tools appear at these sites, and the texts begin to speak of 'black metal', shyama or krishna ayas. Iron was used first mainly for weapons; its wider use in farming came gradually.

Settled farming changed politics. A tribe that now lived on one stretch of land began to identify with it, and the word janapada, literally 'the place where the tribe has set its foot', came to mean a territory. Kingship grew stronger and, in many places, passed from father to son. Kings took grand titles such as samrat and staged costly sacrifices to show their power. The rajasuya was the royal consecration, giving the king supreme authority. In the ashvamedha a horse was set free to roam for a year with an armed escort, and every region it passed through unchallenged was claimed by the king; it was then sacrificed. The vajapeya included a chariot race that the king was made to win, renewing his strength. These rites made the priest indispensable to royal power, and they cost the king large gifts of cattle, gold and land to the priests.

The king also gathered a circle of officers. Texts call them ratnins, 'jewels', and during the rajasuya the king visited each of their homes with offerings, a sign that he needed their support. The list includes the purohita, the senani or commander, the gramani or village headman, the sangrahitri or treasurer and the bhagadugha, who collected the king's share. At the same time the old assemblies lost ground. The vidatha disappears from view; the sabha and samiti still exist, but they no longer check the king as before, the sabha becomes more like a royal court, and women no longer sit in it. Bali, once a voluntary gift, turns into a regular payment, and the burden falls mainly on the Vaishyas, the farmers and herders.

The economy turned decisively towards farming. Ploughing is described in detail in the later texts, with heavy ploughs drawn by teams of oxen, and the list of crops grows: barley still, but now also rice, called vrihi, wheat, pulses and sesame. Rice suited the wetter lands to the east and became the staple there. Cattle remained precious, but land was now the basis of wealth. Specialist crafts multiplied: smiths, potters, carpenters, weavers and makers of chariots appear in the texts, and some groups of traders and artisans begin to act together, hinting at the guilds of later times. Exchange still had no coins. The nishka, now joined by the shatamana, served as a measure of gold value, and the krishnala, a small berry used as a weight, measured small quantities. Hastinapur and Kaushambi grew larger towards the end of the period.

Society became more unequal. The four-fold varna order, mentioned only once in the late Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, now shapes daily life: Brahmanas as priests and teachers, Kshatriyas as rulers and warriors, Vaishyas as farmers, herders and traders who paid tribute, and Shudras, placed at the bottom and expected to serve the other three. The first three were 'twice-born' through the upanayana, the sacred-thread initiation, from which Shudras were excluded. Membership was increasingly fixed by birth, and rules on marriage and on sharing food grew stricter. The gotra also took shape. The word first meant a cow-pen, then came to mean a line of descent from a common ancestor, and marriage within the same gotra was forbidden. Texts also speak of three debts every man owed: to the gods, repaid by sacrifice; to the seers, by studying the Veda; and to the ancestors, by having sons.

The ideal life of a twice-born man was now divided into stages, each an ashrama. The Later Vedic texts know three: brahmacharya, as a celibate student living with a teacher; grihastha, as a householder who marries, earns, performs sacrifices and supports others; and vanaprastha, partial withdrawal to the forest in later years. The fourth stage, sannyasa, full renunciation, became established only after this period. Life was also marked by samskaras, rites of passage from birth to death, later counted as sixteen. Women's place narrowed compared with the Rig Vedic age: they lost their seat in the sabha. There were notable exceptions. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Gargi Vachaknavi questions the sage Yajnavalkya in open debate, and Maitreyi, his wife, discusses with him what makes a person immortal.

Religion moved in two directions at once. On one side, the yajna grew enormous and technical. Prajapati, the creator, rose to the top of the pantheon, Vishnu and Rudra gained importance, and Indra and Agni lost some of their earlier standing. A full sacrifice could need four kinds of priest: the hotri reciting Rig Vedic hymns, the udgatri singing the Sama chants, the adhvaryu performing the actions with Yajur formulas, and the brahman watching over the whole. On the other side, the Upanishad thinkers asked what lies behind all ritual. They taught that the self, atman, is one with brahman, the ultimate reality, summed up in the Chandogya Upanishad's 'tat tvam asi', 'that you are'. They developed the ideas of karma, rebirth and liberation, moksha, through knowledge rather than sacrifice; rulers took part too: King Janaka of Videha hosted and joined such debates.

Put side by side, the two Vedic stages tell one story of settling down. The Rig Vedic people were mobile herders in the northwest, led by tribal chiefs who answered to assemblies, with flexible social roles and gods of nature worshipped with simple offerings. The Later Vedic people were farmers of the Ganga-Yamuna doab and beyond, with iron, territorial kings, rigid varna and gotra rules, priest-heavy ritual and, at the same time, the first deep questioning of ritual. Against the Harappans: they built planned cities with drains and a script, while the Vedic world was rural and its knowledge oral; iron and the horse-drawn spoked chariot are prominent in Vedic texts but not in the Harappan record. The questions raised by the Upanishads, and the new kingdoms and towns of the Ganga plain, lead straight into the age of the Mahajanapadas, the Buddha and Mahavira.

Exam traps

• Of the four Vedas only the Rig Veda is Early Vedic; the Sama, Yajur and Atharva Vedas and all the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads are Later Vedic.
• Sama Veda = melodies for singing, mostly reusing Rig Vedic verses; Yajur Veda = ritual formulas, in prose and verse; Atharva Veda = charms, spells and folk belief.
• Satyameva Jayate comes from the Mundaka Upanishad, not from the Rig Veda; 'tat tvam asi' comes from the Chandogya Upanishad.
• Painted Grey Ware is the pottery of the Later Vedic doab (Hastinapur, Atranjikhera, Ahichchhatra); Black and Red Ware and Northern Black Polished Ware are different traditions.
• In the Later Vedic period the sabha and samiti did not vanish, they lost power; the vidatha is the one that drops out of view.
• The ashvamedha is about a horse roaming to claim territory, the vajapeya about a chariot race, and the rajasuya about consecration; do not swap them.
• The Later Vedic texts know three ashramas; sannyasa as the fourth was established later.
• Gotra exogamy: marriage inside one's own gotra was forbidden, not encouraged.

Recap

• Later Vedic period c. 1000–600 BCE: from the Punjab to the Ganga-Yamuna doab and on to Kosala, Kashi and Videha.
• Texts: Sama (chants), Yajur (Shukla and Krishna; formulas), Atharva (charms); Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads; six Vedangas.
• Shatapatha Brahmana: Videgha Mathava follows Agni east to the Sadanira (Gandak).
• Painted Grey Ware (Hastinapur, Atranjikhera, Ahichchhatra) and iron, 'shyama ayas', used first for weapons.
• Jana becomes janapada; kings take titles and perform rajasuya, ashvamedha and vajapeya; ratnins serve the king.
• Vidatha disappears, sabha and samiti weaken, women leave the sabha; bali becomes a regular payment, mostly from Vaishyas.
• Economy: plough farming, rice (vrihi), wheat; crafts multiply; nishka, shatamana, krishnala; no coins yet.
• Society: four varnas fixed by birth, upanayana for the twice-born, gotra exogamy, three debts; three ashramas.
• Religion: Prajapati, Vishnu, Rudra rise; four priests; Upanishads teach atman-brahman, karma, rebirth, moksha.

Practice questions

Sources

• Ministry of Culture, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts: Vedic Heritage Portal (texts, structure and recitation of the Rig Veda and the other Samhitas) — https://vedicheritage.gov.in
• Archaeological Survey of India: Indian Archaeology – A Review and excavation reports on Painted Grey Ware sites (Hastinapur, Atranjikhera, Ahichchhatra) — https://asi.nic.in